Grid Security in India

On 2011 February 26, S.K. Soonee, CEO at India’s Power System Operation Corporation Limited posted on LinkedIn’s Power System Operator’s Group a link to a paper written by the staff of India’s Central Electricity Regulatory Commission. “Grid Security – Need For Tightening of Frequency Band & Other Measure” can be accessed at http://www.cercind.gov.in/2011/Whats-New/AGENDA_NOTE_FOR_15TH_CAC_MEETINGHI.pdf Through LinkedIn I provided the following comments.

I am dismayed that the simple elegance of the UI pricing vector, as shown in the two diagrams for 2002-2004 and 2007-2009, will be replaced by the convoluted vectors on 2011 May 3. It seems that there is a potential for mischief with having the multitude of simultaneous prices, with an undue accumulation of money by the transmission grid as some UI out of the grid is priced at very high prices at the same instant that other UI into the grid is being priced at a lower price. This is an unwarranted arbitrage for the transmission system.

The HVDC links between S and NEW could provide a warranted arbitrage situation where the grid with lower frequency delivers to the grid with the lower frequency. The different frequencies would result in different prices, with the price differences providing some financial support for the HVDC links.

I was surprised that there was no mention made in regard to Figures 1 and 2 as to when UI pricing started, and how that UI onset resulted in a narrowing of the spread between daily high frequency and daily low frequency. I believe these figures could be well supplemented by a presentation of histograms of the monthly frequency excursions, and how those histograms have changed over time. A numeric approach would include monthly average frequency and monthly standard deviation from 50 Hertz, a statistic for which you have a special name that I forget.

Parts of the Agenda Note discuss the serious impact of very short periods of frequency excursions. These short periods of concern are much shorter than the 15 minute periods used for determining UI. The various parts of the Agenda Note could be harmonized by reducing the size of the settlement period for UI from 15 minutes to 5 minutes or 1 minute.

There is a discussion of limits on the amount of UI power that a participant can transact. I question the need for such limits. As a participant increases the UI power being transacted, the price will move in an unfavorable direction, providing an additional financial incentive for the participant to reduce UI power transactions. For example, a SEB that is short of power and is buying UI faces higher prices as the UI transaction amount increases. These higher prices provide a multiplicative incentive for the SEB to reduce its shortage and its purchase of UI.

Many systems plan for the biggest credible single contingency, which the report treats as the single largest unit. The report shows that entire plants have gone out at a same time, suggesting that the biggest credible single contingency is a plant not a generating unit.

As an aside, in the listing of the generating capacity by size of generating unit, my experience in the US suggests that the list understates the number of generators. There would be many times the identified number of plants if the list included captive generators such as backup generators, which may be as small as a few KW. Again, based on my experience in the US, the total capacity of those unidentified generators will rival the total capacity of the identified generators.

I wonder why the under frequency relays in the East are set lower than the relays in the other regions.

I don’t understand the terminology that “Nepal has several asynchronous ties with the Indian grid (AC radial links).” My interpretation is that Nepal has a disjoint system with each section tied synchronously to different locations of India, making the sections synchronous to each other through their links to India.

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Mark Lively earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1969 and a MS in Management from MIT Sloan School in 1971. He worked for American Electric Power Service Corporation in New York City from 1971 to 1976 and at Ernst & Ernst, Ernst & Whinney, Ernst & Young in its Washington Utility Group from 1976 to 1991.
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